Editing French Resistance (section)

==Networks and movements==
{{Main|List of networks and movements of the French Resistance}}
[[File:Member of the FFI.jpg|thumb|upright|A volunteer of the French Resistance interior force (FFI) at [[Châteaudun]] in 1944.]]

In this context, it is customary to distinguish the various organisations of the French Resistance as ''movements'' or ''networks''. A Resistance ''network'' was an organisation created for a specific military purpose, usually intelligence-gathering, sabotage or aiding Allied air crews who had been shot down behind enemy lines.{{Sfn|Moore|2000|p=128}}{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|pp=408–410}} A Resistance ''movement'', on the other hand, was focused on educating and organizing the population,{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|pp=408–410}} i.e., "to raise awareness and organise the people as broadly as possible."{{Sfn|Moore|2000|p=128}}

===BCRA networks===
{{Further|Operation Jedburgh}}
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J27288, Frankreich, Bretagne, Einsatz gegen die Resistance.jpg|thumb|German military and résistants, in [[Brittany]], July, 1944.]]
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J27289, Frankreich, Festnahme von Franzosen.jpg|thumb|German military and résistants, July, 1944.]]

In July 1940, after the defeat of the French armies and the consequent [[armistice with France (Second Compiègne)|armistice with Germany]], British prime minister [[Winston Churchill]] asked the [[Free French Forces|Free French government-in-exile]] (headed by General [[Charles de Gaulle]]) to set up a secret service agency in occupied France to counter the threat of a German operation code-named [[Operation Sea Lion]], the expected cross-[[English Channel|channel]] invasion of Britain. [[André Dewavrin|Colonel André Dewavrin]] (also known as Colonel Passy), who had previously worked for France's military intelligence service, the ''[[Deuxième Bureau]]'', took on the responsibility for creating such a network. Its principal goal was to inform London of German military operations on the Atlantic coast and in the English Channel.{{Sfn|Marshall|2001|p=24}} The spy network was called the ''[[Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action]]'' (BCRA), and its actions were carried out by volunteers who were parachuted into France to create and nourish local Resistance cells.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=400}}

Of the nearly 2,000 volunteers who were active by the end of the war, one of the most effective and well-known was the agent [[Gilbert Renault]], who was awarded the [[Ordre de la Libération]] and later the [[Legion of Honour]] for his deeds.<ref name="Gilbert Renault">{{cite web| url=http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/836.html/| title=Gilbert Renault| author=Order of the Liberation| access-date=2008-01-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071106170541/http://www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr_compagnon/836.html |archive-date=November 6, 2007 }}</ref> Known mainly by the pseudonym Colonel Rémy, he returned to France in August 1940 not long after the surrender of France, where the following November he organised one of the most active and important Resistance networks of the BCRA, the ''[[Confrérie de Notre Dame]]'' (Brotherhood of Our Lady), which provided the Allies with photographs, maps and important information on German defenses in general and the [[Atlantic Wall]] in particular.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=12}} From 1941 on, networks such as these allowed the BCRA to send armed paratroopers, weapons and radio equipment into France to carry out missions.

Another important BCRA operative, [[Henri Honoré d'Estienne d'Orves]], a naval officer, developed a 26-person network in France. He was betrayed, arrested in May 1941, and shot on 29 August 1941.

[[Christian Pineau]], one of the founders of the [[Libération Nord]] movement, also had BCRA roots. During his trip to London in April 1942, the BCRA entrusted him with the creation of two new intelligence systems, {{ill|Phalanx (French Resistance)|lt=Phalanx|fr|Phalanx (réseau)|vertical-align=sup}} and {{ill|Cohors-Asturies|fr|vertical-align=sup}}. Both networks proved vital later in the war.

''[[Mouvements Unis de la Résistance]]'' (Unified Movements of the Resistance, MUR) was a French Resistance organisation resulting from the regrouping of three major Resistance movements ("Combat", "Franc-Tireur" and "Libération-Sud") in January 1943. Later that year, the BCRA and the United Movements of Resistance merged their intelligence networks.

Another BCRA appendage was called {{ill|Gallia (French Resistance)|lt=Gallia|fr|Gallia (réseau)|vertical-align=sup}}, a fact-gathering network specializing in military intelligence and police activities. Its importance increased throughout the second half of 1943 and into the spring of 1944. It eventually became the largest BCRA network in the Vichy zone, employing about 2,500 sources, contacts, couriers and analysts. Gallia's work did not stop after the 1944 landings in Normandy and Provence; it provided information to the Allies that allowed for the bombing of the retreating German armies' military targets.

===Foreigners in the Resistance===
====Dutch====
[[Dutch-Paris]] built an important network in France to help the resistance, Jews and allied pilots to cross the Pyrenees and flee to Britain. 800 Jews and 142 pilots were saved. Near the end of the war, because of a denunciation, nearly all members of the network were caught and deported to concentration camps, where many died.

====Armenians====
Armenians living in France took up arms and fought the resistance against the Axis forces. The most significant Armenian resistant were 23 strong men led by Missak Manouchian, who were hanged on February 21, 1944.

====Spanish maquis====
{{Main|Spanish Maquis}}
Following their defeat in the [[Spanish Civil War]] in early 1939, about half a million Spanish Republicans fled to France to escape imprisonment or execution.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=105}} On the north side of the [[Pyrenees]], such refugees were confined in [[concentration camps in France|internment camps]] such as [[Camp Gurs]] and [[Camp Vernet]].{{Sfn|Weitz|1995|p=29}}{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=105}} Although over half of these had been repatriated to Spain (or elsewhere) by the time Pétain proclaimed the Vichy régime in 1940,{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=13}} the 120,000 to 150,000 who remained{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=495}} became political prisoners, and the foreign equivalent to the ''Service du Travail Obligatoire'', the ''Compagnies de Travailleurs Étrangers'' (Companies of Foreign Workers) or CTE, began to pursue them for slave labor.{{Sfn|Zuccotti|1999|p=76}} The CTE was initially seen as a welcome break from the monotony of the camps by many. Lluís Montagut, a member of the C.T.E, described how "we (the Spanish Republican internees) held so much desire to not to see the camps that we accepted (the positions offered by the C.T.E) without the slightest objection...we went out of the way to lose the shameful tag of undesirables".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dreyfus-Armand |first=Geneviève |title=L'Exil des Républicains Espagnols en France |publisher=Albin Michel |year=1999 |location=Paris |page=107 |language=fr}}</ref>

The CTE permitted prisoners to leave the internment camps if they agreed to work in German factories,{{Sfn|Weitz|1995|p=242}} but as many as 60,000 Republicans recruited for the labor service managed to escape and join the French Resistance.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=13}} Thousands of suspected anti-fascist Republicans were deported to German concentration camps instead, however.{{Sfn|Bowen|2000|p=140}} Most were sent to [[Mauthausen concentration camp|Mauthausen]] where, of the 10,000 Spaniards registered, only 2,000 survived the war.{{Sfn|Bowen|2006|p=237}}

Many Spanish escapees joined French Resistance groups; others formed their own autonomous groups which became known as the Spanish maquis. In April 1942, Spanish communists formed an organisation called the XIV Corps, an armed guerrilla movement of about 3,400 combatants by June 1944.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=495}} Although the group first worked closely with the [[Francs-Tireurs et Partisans]] (FTP), it re-formed as the ''Agrupación de Guerrilleros Españoles'' (Spanish Guerrilla Group, AGE) in May 1944.{{Sfn|Beevor|2006|p=420}} The name change was intended to convey the group's composition: Spanish soldiers ultimately advocating the fall of General [[Francisco Franco]].{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=495}} After the German Army had been driven from France, the Spanish maquis refocused on Spain.

====Czechs and Slovaks====
Among Czechs and Slovaks who joined the French Resistance were [[Otakar Hromádko]], [[Věra Waldes]] and [[Artur London]].

====German anti-nazis====
From spring 1943, German and Austrian anti-nazis who had fought in the [[International Brigades]] during the [[Spanish Civil War]] fought in [[Lozère]] and the [[Cévennes]] alongside the French Resistance in the [[Francs-Tireurs et Partisans]].{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=13}} During the first years of the occupation, they had been employed in the CTE, but following the German invasion of the southern zone in 1942 the threat increased, and many joined the [[maquis (World War II)|maquis]]. They were led by militant German communist [[Otto Kühne]], a former member of the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag in the Weimar Republic]] who had over 2,000 Germans in the FTP under his command by July 1944. He fought the Nazis directly, as in an April 1944 battle in [[Saint-Étienne-Vallée-Française]] in which his soldiers destroyed a [[Feldgendarmerie]] unit, or in an ambush of the [[Waffen-SS]] on June 5, 1944.{{sfn|Brès|Brès|2007|pp={{Page needed|date=April 2021}}}}

====Luxembourgers====
400 men from [[Luxembourg]] (which was annexed into Germany), many of whom had refused to serve in, or who had deserted from, the German Wehrmacht, left their tiny country to fight in the French maquis, where they were particularly active in the regions of [[Lyon]], [[Grenoble]] and the [[Ardennes]] although many of them were killed in the war. Others, like [[Antoine Diederich]], rose to high rank in the Resistance. Diederich, known only as "Capitaine Baptiste", had 77 maquis soldiers under his command and is best known for attacking [[Riom]] prison, where he and his fighters freed every one of 114 inmates who had been sentenced to death.{{sfn|Rath|2009|pp=375–377}}

====Hungarians====
Many Hungarian émigrés, some of them Jewish, were artists and writers working in Paris at the time of the occupation. They had gone to Paris in the 1920s and 1930s to escape repression in their homeland. Many joined the Resistance, where they were particularly active in the regions of [[Lyon]], [[Grenoble]], [[Marseille]] and [[Toulouse]]. Jewish resisters included Imre Epstein in the Hungarian group at Toulouse; György Vadnai (future [[Lausanne]] rabbi) at Lyon; the writer [[Emil Szittya]] at Limoges. Also participating were the painter Sándor Józsa, the sculptor István Hajdú ([[Étienne Hajdu]]), the journalists László Kőrös and Imre Gyomrai; the photographers [[Andor (André) Steiner]], [[Lucien Hervé]] and [[Ervin Martón]]. [[Thomas Elek]] (1924–1944), [[Imre Glasz]] (1902–1944) and [[József Boczor]] (1905–1944) were among 23 resisters executed for their work with the legendary [[Manouchian Group]]. The Germans executed nearly 1,100 Jewish resisters of different nationalities during the occupation, while others were killed in action.<ref name=ArtProscrit>{{cite web| url=http://mardishongrois.blogspot.com/2010/04/art-proscrit-szamuzott-muveszet.html |title="Art proscrit" – "Száműzött művészet" – Exposition à Budapest du 17 avril au 15 août 2010 |last1=Kiss |first1=Edit Bán |last2=Munkás |first2=Béla Mészöly |last3=Wittmann |first3=Zsigmond |work=[[Holocaust Memorial Center (Budapest)]] |date=12 April 2010 |access-date=2017-08-19}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hdke.hu/files/csatolmanyok/leporello_EN.pdf |title=Art in Exile: Belated Homecoming |last1=Kiss |first1=Edit Bán |last2=Munkás |first2=Béla Mészöly |last3=Wittmann |first3=Zsigmond |work=Holocaust Memorial Center (Budapest) |access-date=2017-08-17 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225083746/http://www.hdke.hu/files/csatolmanyok/leporello_EN.pdf  }}</ref>

====Italian anti-fascists====
On 3 March 1943, representatives of the [[Italian Communist Party]] and [[Italian Socialist Party]] who had taken refuge in France, signed the "Pact of Lyon" which marked the beginning of their participation in the Resistance. Italians were particularly numerous in the Hitler-annexed [[Moselle]] industrial area, where they played a determining role in the creation of the Département's main resistance organisation, ''Groupe Mario''.{{Sfn|Burger|1965}} [[Vittorio Culpo]] is an example of Italians in the French Resistance.

====Polish resistance in France during World War II====
{{Main|Polish resistance in France during World War II}}

The majority of the Polish soldiers, and some Polish civilians, who stayed in France after the German victory in 1940, as well as one Polish pilot shot down over France (one of many Polish pilots flying for the [[RAF]]), joined the French Resistance, notably including [[Tony Halik]] and [[Aleksander Kawałkowski]].

====Cajun Americans====
While not part of the French Resistance, French-speaking [[Cajun]] soldiers in the [[United States military]] posed as local civilians in France to channel American assistance to the Resistance.<ref>[http://beta.lpb.org/index.php?/site/programs/mon_cher_camarade/mon_cher_camarade ''LPB – Mon Cher Camarade''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160911143524/http://beta.lpb.org/index.php?%2Fsite%2Fprograms%2Fmon_cher_camarade%2Fmon_cher_camarade |date=11 September 2016 }}, Louisiana Public Broadcasting, 10 September 2009. Retrieved 27 May 2011.</ref>

===Beginnings of a coordinated resistance===
[[File:Huelgoat. Résistants 2ème guerre mondiale.JPG|thumb|Resistants from [[Huelgoat]].]]

From 1940 to 1942, the first years of the German occupation of France, there was no systematically organised Resistance capable of coordinated fighting throughout France. Active opposition to the German and Vichy authorities was sporadic and carried out only by a tiny and fragmented set of operatives.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|pp=402–403}} Most French men and women put their faith in the Vichy government and its figurehead, Marshal Pétain, who continued to be widely regarded as the "savior" of France,{{Sfn|Davies|2000|p=20}}{{Sfn|McMillan|1998|p=135}} opinions which persisted until their unpopular policies, and their collaboration with the foreign occupiers, became broadly apparent.

The earliest Resistance organisations had no contact with the western Allies and received no material aid from London or anywhere else. Consequently, most focused on generating nationalist propaganda through the distribution of underground newspapers.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|pp=406–407}} Many of the major movements, such as [[Défense de la France]], were primarily engaged in publishing and distributing their newspapers. Even after they became more intensively activist, propaganda and the cultivation of positive morale remained, until the very end of the war, their most important concerns.{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=412}}

Early acts of violent resistance were often motivated more by instinct and fighting spirit than by any formal ideology,{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=414}} but later several distinct political alignments and visions of post-liberation France developed among the Resistance organisations. These differences sometimes resulted in conflicts, but the differences among Resistance factions were usually papered over by their shared opposition to Vichy and the Germans;{{Sfn|Jackson|2003|p=416}} and over time, the various elements of the Resistance began to unite.

Many of the networks recruited and controlled by the British and Americans were not perceived by the French as particularly interested in establishing a united or integrated Resistance operation, and the guerrilla groups controlled by the communists were only slightly more attracted by the idea of joining of a Resistance "umbrella" organisation. Nonetheless, a contact between de Gaulle's envoys and the communists was established at the end of 1942. The liberation of [[Corsica]] in September 1943, a clear demonstration of the strength of communist insurgency, was accomplished by the FTP, an effective force not yet integrated into the Secret Army and not involved with General [[Henri Giraud]], the Free French or the political unification of the Resistance.

The French Resistance began to unify in 1941. This was evidenced by the formation of movements in the Vichy zone centred on such figures as [[Henri Frenay]] (''[[Combat (French Resistance)|Combat]]''), [[Emmanuel d'Astier de La Vigerie]] (''[[Libération-Sud]]'') and [[François de Menthon]], (''Liberté''), each of whom was, independently, an agent of the Free French. Formal consolidation was accomplished through the intervention of [[Jean Moulin]].

[[Prefect]] of [[Eure-et-Loir]] in 1939, Moulin was subsequently a part of the Air Ministry of [[Pierre Cot]]. In this context, he had forged a strong network of relationships in anti-fascist circles. Some time after November 1940, the idea of teaming up with his former colleague, {{ill|Gaston Cusin|fr|vertical-align=sup}}, to identify and contact a number of potential Resistance "centres of influence" occurred to him; but only during the summer of 1941 was he able to make the most critical contacts, including contact with Henri Frenay, leader of the movement not yet called ''Combat'' but still known as the {{ill|National Liberation Movement (France)|fr|Mouvement de libération nationale|lt=National Liberation Movement|vertical-align=sup}}. He also established contact with de Menthon and Emmanuel d'Astier. In the report he wrote for de Gaulle, he spoke of these three movements and entertained the possibility of bringing them together under the acronym "LLL".

===Maquis===
The [[Maquis (World War II)|Maquis]] ({{IPA|fr|maˈki}}) were rural [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla]] bands of French Resistance fighters, called ''maquisards'', during the [[German occupation of France during World War II|Occupation of France]] in [[World War II]]. Initially, they were composed of men who had escaped into the mountains to avoid [[conscription]] into Vichy France's [[Service du travail obligatoire]] (STO) to provide [[Forced labour under German rule during World War II|forced labor for Nazi Germany]]. To avert capture and deportation to Germany, they became increasingly organized into non-active resistance groups.

===Jean Moulin's intercession===
The majority of resistance movements in France were unified after Moulin's formation of the ''[[Conseil National de la Résistance]]'' (CNR) in May 1943.{{Sfn|Weitz|1995|p=60}}{{Sfn|Marshall|2001|pp=46–48}} CNR was coordinated with the [[Free French forces]] under the authority of French Generals [[Henri Giraud]] and [[Charles de Gaulle]] and their body, the ''[[French Committee of National Liberation|Comité Français de Libération Nationale]]'' (CFLN).